This article uncovers how deliberate structural injustice in law maintains disadvantage for specific groups, indicating significant societal implications.
Deliberate structural injustice through law Kati Rantala’s recent article on silent stakeholders addresses the dilemmas in normative inclusive lawmaking that often overlook harsh realities behind the rhetoric.(1) Here, she explores structural injustice in law and its impact on silent stakeholders in subordinate positions, citing examples from Finland. In a much-cited passage, Iris Young states that structural injustice involves social processes that, within the boundaries of accepted rules and norms, place large groups ‘under systematic threat of domination or deprivation of the means to develop and exercise their capacities,’ while benefiting others in better positions (p. 52). (2) Building on this, Maeve McKeown introduces the concept of deliberate structural injustice, where powerful agents acknowledge groups disadvantaged by social structures and intentionally perpetuate the injustice for their own benefit. (3) Although these powerful agents have the capacity to change the situation, they choose to maintain it.
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Kati Rantala (2025) studied this question.
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